It was an old hotel in Morocco Caruso sang through the walls Beat North African hipsters Were muttering outside in the halls An American waits for his interpreter-guide Caffeine makes his hands itch and shake She enters the room and calls with her eyes Like a snake charmer summons the snake

"Blood Oranges, a copper buys you ten. Come and see the dancing clown who lives with the Blue Men"

He said, "I came here to study the language Of a very rare nomadic tribe" She chortled and clucked and hissed through her teeth And motioned him to follow her outside He wondered about the scars on her forehead And the secrets behind her dark veil As she led him out through the walls of the city Through the moonlight on an old camel trail

They came upon a circle of nomads Camped far from the lights of the town Blue men with scars and malarial eyes And teeth that were pointed. . . filed down He said: "These are the people I've been searching for, This is more than I ever could have hoped!" As they threw him down on a blanket And tied him up with a hand-braided rope

They cut out his tongue and blinded his eyes With coals from a cous-cous fire Tied empty tin cans to his arms and his legs That rattled on long copper wires Now he's forgotten his name and why he came to the desert As they lead him through oasis and town And the people stare, throw coins and laugh wildly At the Blue Men and their white dancing clown.

I have been to Morocco, and have seen the Blue Men dancing at night in the huge plaza in Marrakesh. No white clowns with them, though. My friend Joan and I had various young men offer to guide us, but they were all very nice. The people there are very friendly, and those who have studied English are always looking for an opportunity to practice it.

The lyrics are not bad, but they only extract the horror and clash-of-civilizations part from Camus's story. The latter is rather about religion.

The music is not really sophisticated, but Weighell does a decent job to make it sound eerie with minimal equipment.

Here are your chords:

Verse: Em |:Em D Em B Em D C B :|

Chorus: C Em C Em C Em D Em

BTW, Mike, if you tend to "go blue in your face", you should see a doctor. At Mudcat, a thread is about all aspects of a song, not only the OP's request. For best chances, supply all the necessary informations, say "please" (or, second-rate, your "thank you" in advance), and perhaps give a reason for your request such as "I want to sing it at my cousin's wedding" (well, not this song ...). Other exclamations are not likely to help.

Thank you for the chords to the song, it was the bar chords in the verse that i was having the trouble with . sorry about not posting the link, i am not the most techy bloke i the world BTW I was only thanking you in advance of your effort in working out the chords and not for actually doing the work . i am new to Mudcat but really enjoy the banter (That's English slang by the way)

My face has much recover its proper colour by the time of typing this, you will be glad to know. although my blood pressure may well rise again if i sing is song on all hollows eve.

> BTW I was only thanking you in advance of your effort in working > out the chords and not for actually doing the work.

If that means you did not mean to save yourself thanking me again afterwards - I did not assume anything else. In my opinion, "please" is the most adequate word, and quite short, but your I understood your intention alright, otherwise I would not have responded. It was your line about the blue face that made me write my comment.

Grishka: You have hit on something that has always (mildly) annoyed me: that phrase "thank you in advance." I always assumed people put that in to save themselves the trouble of thanking me (or whoever) afterwards.

The people who say that often have no idea how much work it might be to find an answer to their question, or how complicated the answer might be, or how you might end up posting only a tentative or partial answer, without knowing for certain whether you have given what was really wanted, and so on.

Not that it matters a whole lot; I will often undertake to answer a request only because I enjoy the challenge, or because I enjoy the thought that I am helping to build the world's biggest database of information about songs, which may well be here in some form for decades to come.

Still, it's nice to have one's work acknowledged.

I think some people post requests and then forget about them, and never come back to see the replies.

It's nice to know that that didn't happen. "Thank you in advance" doesn't supply that kind of information.